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Hong Kong Frets Over Low Fertility Rates

A child plays with hula hoops at the Southorn playground in Hong Kong on March 28, 2005.

In the 1970s, Hong Kong’s government worked hard to persuade people against having too many children—with posters around town declaring “Two is enough” and “Family planning can make work a delight and life blissful.”

Fast forward 40 years, and the reverse is true, with demographers now wringing their hands over low fertility rates. Like much of Asia, with rising education levels, declining marriage rates and longer work hours, Hong Kong has seen its youth population shrink. By 2030, a quarter of its population is expected to be age 65 and above, according to government estimates.

Hong Kong’s next top leader, Leung Chun-ying, proposes strengthening financial incentives to coax the city’s residents to start having more babies. According to his campaign platform (in Chinese), Mr. Leung would raise existing tax breaks for families who have babies to HK$80,000 (US$10,300) for their first child and HK$100,000 (US$13,000) for every subsequent child. For a family with three kids, that would total an annual boon of US$36,300 in tax breaks, more than the city’s per-capita GDP.

Hong Kong Family Planning Association

This poster from 1982 reads, Family planning: the responsibility of a real man.”

Hong Kong’s government has been a pro-baby cheerleader for some time now. In 2005, Chief Secretary Donald Tsang made serial pregnancy sound like practically a civic duty, telling residents that couples “should at least give birth to three kids to help alleviate the ageing population.” Still, fertility rates have stayed low: In 2010, Hong Kong’s fertility rate was just 1.10 births per woman, well below the 2.1 rate needed to maintain a population at its current levels.

But Paul Yip, research chair for Hong Kong’s Family Planning Association, says that even sums as generous as Mr. Leung’s proposed tax break aren’t enough to make the city crawl with extra babies. He notes that it’s extremely expensive to raise a child in Hong Kong, citing a Hang Seng Bank ad that raised some eyebrows for claiming that raising a child in Hong Kong costs as much as HK$4 million (US$515,000). For prospective parents living in tiny apartments (the average flat in the city is just 600 square feet), he says, the idea of an additional child can be stressful. The money parents might save through a tax credit “can buy some milk powder, but it’s not enough to pay for violin and piano lessons,” says Mr. Yip.

Low birth rates are endemic across the region. In Singapore, for example, where parents receive cash incentives, the fertility rate is 1.15. The trend is likewise apparent in mainland China, where the fertility rate is 1.8, according to government estimates. (China’s one-child policy permits a number of exceptions, including for rural residents and ethnic minorities.) Meanwhile, with a fertility rate of less than 1, Taiwan is home to the world’s lowest rate of childbirth, despite government-offered subsidies.

Part of this trend, says Mr. Yip, can be traced to a growing reluctance among couples to have children, noting that many “want to be child-free” and have become “more individualistic.” Mr. Yip tries not to condemn such an attitude, saying, “if it makes it easier to go on a cruise, or a holiday, that’s your choice, it’s your lifestyle.” But he also argues that more children—who eventually become productive, tax-paying workers—are an economic force that help to support the whole community, especially the older generation.

One way to address the local fertility rate would be to allow more mothers from the mainland to give birth in Hong Kong, a controversial trend that is already filling up baby wards in the city. Though most children accompany their mothers back home, as Hong Kong permanent residents, many eventually return to Hong Kong to work or study. However, locals strongly oppose such a population influx, saying it threatens to overburden the city’s hospitals and schools.

For the moment, says Mr. Yip, it’s good to see Hong Kong’s next chief executive backing financial incentives for expectant parents. “Children belong not only to me, but also the community,” he says, “and everybody should chip in.”